All I’m going to say is that you can count me as a frontrunner for his statement: “the new generation of students entering colleges are a cold, cynical and bitter lot, who have the capacity to argue and challenge left wing nonsense,” and though it is probably just a side effect of the location and type of school I went to, most of my fellow students in the engineering programs were right there with me, if a trifle less concerned with politics than me and those in my immediate circle.

I often wonder if I am the last of the last when it comes to public schooling. For example, in middle school I was the last class for my history teacher, a lady who had been teaching for 35 years. In high school I was the last class for my calculus teacher, who had been teaching for over 30 years. Quizikle brings word of more PC shenanigans in the classroom, and I wonder if part of the reason I am the way I am is that in many cases I had the last of the old school teachers, who didn’t play games with that sort of BS…

You want to know why only 40% of kids in the school district here were above proficient in, well, anything?

Back to school savings in VIDEO GAMES?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Oh, and I clicked on it, just to see if they were all educational games or something marginally related to school. We had such intellectually stimulating items as “Modern Warfare 2,” “Sims 3 Deluxe,” and “LEGO Harry Potter.”

I give up. All you old farts are going to die and I’m going to have to deal with these kids some day. It’s going to be like herding cats… who have ADD… and are strung out on pharmaceutical stimulants… and who think that a full day of work consists of 5 hours on facebook and 3 hours playing little games on the internet that consist of clicking on shiny shiny flashing lights. I might as well dig a bunker and seal myself in for 50 years right the hell now, and come out after everyone’s Miranda-ed themselves.

So the weirdest thing just happened. It’s kinda sad, too. One of my professors of Mechanical Engineering who was a pilot just crashed his plane and died, while I was visiting Butte. He was a good guy, maybe a little lenient when it came to lectures, but always willing to explain stuff outside of class. I can’t get over that he did this while I was in town.

Got an email from my school the other day, asking if I would like to take a survey. I still think they may have a few wires crossed, as I, um, am in a completely different STATE, not to mention that I GRADUATED, but hey, I thought, what the heck.

The survey was from some Professional and Technical Communication student asking if I thought it would be a good idea to provide every student at the school with a supported by your tuition! free technogimmick iPad, under the pretension that it would enhance your studies.

What an absolutely abominably horrible idea.

This person obviously isn’t an engineering student. An electronic textbook would be great for classes with a lot of story-like reading–history and literature and such. But when you use your textbooks as reference material–look at the graph on page 450 and with the number you get off of it go to the chart on page 300 to get the factor you need to insert into the equation listed on page 295–it just DOESN’T WORK in ebook form. Then there’s the unfortunate fact that an iPad is an Apple product, whereas nearly all of the software that is used for engineering runs on Windows. Then there’s the also unfortunate fact that none of said software would run on a tablet anyway. Then there’s the additional unfortunate fact that an iPad needs a real computer to plug into if you use it, which eliminates the “providing for the poor” aspect that I’m sure this bleeding heart PTC major has in mind. And for five hundred bucks you could buy every student a licensed copy of Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Solid Works, and MATLAB.

Got my first student loan bill yesterday. Whee. I have hardly any debt, especially since after my dad died we dropped mightily in income brackets and I got a couple more scholarships for it (which still makes me a little bit angry).

So, anyway, it’s not bad, but it’s still there. I wish my job that I have now was more permanent…

Especially when someone comes into it from a Google translate page. You just know that they are on their last legs, searching for a desperate hope, and I am the best thing that the internet can throw at them. The LAST… BEST… AND ONLY!!! hope that exists to protect all of mankind from the scourge of ignorance!

What should I be telling them though? Use something other than Excel if you want to do complicated differential equations on the computer!

I’m still on all of the mailing lists for my school. They keep sending me surveys, you know, the types of questions that ask “Do you use such-and-such building? What days of the week? What times?” It’s really tempting to say that I only use all the computer labs from midnight to two in the morning, and only on Saturdays and Sundays, and that I really like the Cafeteria’s interpretation of fine dining, but I don’t like to use silverware. So far I’ve been honest, but if they keep bugging me with questions I may just snap…

…and I feel fine. Seriously, my finals are a total joke. For that matter, my classes this semester are a total joke. Why couldn’t they have just given me my diploma last semester? I haven’t learned anything new these past 5 months! Oh, that’s right–they wanted my money. I always forget that the school administration doesn’t actually care if I have an education or not.

Added: …and I just finished my last true final of my undergraduate career. One more presentation to go, on Wednesday, and another little ceremony on Saturday.

Remember a couple weeks ago I talked about the J79 engine and some hybrid rockets? Well, the opportunity came up for me to work out there with those people for the next couple weeks, setting up stuff for the really big hybrid they are working on. Since my class schedule is pretty light (read: this semester is a joke), I am not worried about missing anything, though next week is finals. It should be pretty interesting, even though I will only be a lowly intern, making peanuts. But it will give me another title you can use–“ROCKET SCIENTIST.”

As I may have mentioned, my mother is flying up today to be here for several small ceremonies my school does for December graduates. I’m hoping she doesn’t have too much of a hassle with the TSA on the way up, but since she’s flying out of Hither Regional Podunkton Airport and landing in Yon Regional Podunkton Airport, I doubt there will be too much trouble. Small airports seem to have nicer security people, in my decidedly non-extensive experience. Anyway, I’m not sure how much I’m going to be out and about with her over the weekend, so until later I might only have some random little things come up. In other words, no change from usual.

I finally got around to doing my school loan “exit counseling” today. I was struck by the irony of the section called “Money Management Tips,” which gave tips for keeping a balanced budget so I could pay the fed.gov back.

…

Imagine that. The federal government giving me tips on balancing a budget.

As I mentioned here. my Aerospace Propulsion class was researching the J79 jet engine. We were researching it because today we went on a field trip to a place that has a few J79’s that they use to supply air to some other tests.

They’ve also got some very large hybrid rockets that they are testing, and some other cool stuff. They just run it right in the hangar like that. Pretty cool stuff. Sorry I’m not too specific, but I don’t want to have to kill you.